The Upside/Downside Ratio shows the relationship
between up (advancing) and down (declining) volume on the New York Stock
Exchange. Click here for more information on Advancing, declining, and
unchanged volume.
Interpretation
When the Upside/Downside Ratio is greater than 1.0,
it is showing that there is more volume associated with stocks that are
increasing in price than with stocks that are decreasing in price.
While discussing advancing/declining volume in his
book, Winning on Wall Street, Martin Zweig states, "Every bull market in
history, and many good intermediate advances, have been launched with a
buying stampede that included one or more 9-to-1 days" ("9-to-1" refers
to a day were the Upside/Downside Ratio is greater than nine). He goes
on to say, "the 9-to-1 up day is a most encouraging sign, and having two
of them within a reasonably short span is very bullish. I call it a
"double 9-to-1" when two such days occur with three months of one
another."
Table 15 (originally tabulated through 1984 by
Martin Zweig) shows all of the double 9-to-1 buy signals that occurred
from 1962 to October 1994. As of this writing, no signals have occurred
since the last one on June 8, 1988.
Table 15
Date
DJIA
% Change 3 months later
% Change 6 months later
% Change 12 months later
11/12/62
624
+8.5
+15.9
+20.2
11/19/63
751
+6.9
+9.1
+16.5
10/12/66
778
+6.9
+8.6
+17.4
5/27/70
663
+14.6
+17.8
+16.5
11/19/71
830
+11.8
+17.0
+22.8
9/19/75
830
+1.7
+18.1
+19.9
4/22/80
790
+11.8
+17.0
+22.8
3/22/82
820
-2.4
+13.2
+37.0
8/20/82
869
+15.1
+24.3
+38.4
1/6/83
1,071
+3.9
+14.0
+20.2
8/2/84
1,166
+4.4
+10.6
+16.0
11/23/84
1,220
+4.7
+6.2
+19.3
1/2/87
1,927
+20.4
+26.4
+4.6
10/29/87
1,938
+1.0
+4.9
+10.8
1/4/88
2,015
-1.7
+7.1
+8.0
6/8/88
2,102
-1.9
+1.9
+19.7
AVERAGE
+6.4/qtr.
+12.5/half
+18.4/year
Example
The following chart shows the Dow Jones Industrial
Average during most of the 1980s.
I drew "buy" arrows on the chart where double 9-to-1
buy signals occurred.
Calculation
The Upside/Downside Ratio is calculated by dividing
the daily volume of advancing stocks by the daily volume of declining
stocks.